[Coral-List] Open Access

Richard Dunne RichardPDunne at aol.com
Fri Apr 25 12:03:17 EDT 2008


Dear Paul and Coral List

Springer Open Choice, involves the following:
1. Articles made available with open access, free to anyone, any time, 
and anywhere in the world via SpringerLink electronic access.
2. Author not required to transfer copyright to Springer.
3. Author free to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work, and 
make derivative works.
4. Author free to permanently archive the article with full open access 
to anyone anywhere in the world for viewing, full-text searching, 
downloading and further distribution.
5. In exercising all these rights and uses the author and journal are 
required to be properly acknowledged and it must not be for commercial 
gain. (Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 2.5 Generic License).

I am not sure what part of this you specifically object to. It seems to 
me to involve full open access so long as there is no commercial gain 
involved (reasonable) and that the author and journal are acknowledged. 
It is the author who holds the copyright not Springer so it can be 
archived anywhere by the author so long as he/she and the journal are 
acknowledged.

Certainly if any research is publicly funded then it is open for the 
funding agency to provide publication costs to the researcher and then 
require that the publication be given open access either in journals 
such as PLoS Biology or in commercial journals. As one might expect, 
different publishing models will have a different cost base. Thus for 
example, subsidised open access in PloS Biology costs the author US 
dollars 2,700, whereas in a Springer journal it will be 3,000 dollars. 
Doubtless there are other cheaper journals and others that are more 
expensive.

Unless you can find a publisher willing to make the entire process free 
then there will always be a requirement for someone to pay. Nor am I 
sure how you deduce that these costs are "overpriced" given that the 
Public Library of Science journals make it clear that they are non 
profit and also receive support from philanthropic organisations and yet 
they still find it necessary to charge US dollars 2,700 for an 
electronic publication.

Richard P Dunne


Paul Blanchon wrote:
> Dear Richard (and list)
>
> Reiterating Juan’s point, Springers ‘Open Access Policy' is clearly no 
> such thing. If they released access or copyright to the journal 
> archives, then that would be different. The problem as I see it is 
> this: Given that tax-payers largely fund coral reef research, their 
> money should be spent in the public interest, not to create 
> intellectual property for the financial benefit of commercial 
> publishers. It is true that they pay for copy editing, manuscript 
> formatting, and publishing. But public access to the research they fund 
> should not be held hostage to these secondary and presently overpriced 
> expenses. In short, publishers have improper control over a public 
> investment.
>
> Saludos
> Paul.
>
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Dr. Paul BLANCHON  |  Investigador Cientifico
> Reef Systems Unit (Pto. Morelos)
> Inst. de Ciencias del Mar y Limnologia (ICML)
> Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM)
> Ap. Postal 1152, CP 77500 Cancun,
> Q. Roo, MEXICO
>
> Tel. +52 (998) 87-10219 ext 47
> Fax: +52 (998) 87-10138
> Work E-mail: blanchon at icmyl.unam.mx
> Home E-mail: blanchon_s at yahoo.com
> Web: www.icmyl.unam.mx/arrecifes/-blanchon.html
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>
> "Equality in access to science is not only a social and
> ethical requirement for human development, but also
> a necessity for realizing the full potential of scientific
> communities worldwide and for orienting scientific
> progress towards meeting the needs of humankind"
>
> Declaration on Science and the Use of Scientific Knowledge
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>   



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